Authorities announced Tuesday that they have in custody the last of four people they believe participated in a plan to torture and sexually mutilate a Newport Beach man in an attempt rob him of a large amount of cash they thought he'd buried in the desert.

A group of kidnappers tortured a prostitute in Costa Mesa and Westminster motel rooms for about a week before officers were able to free her, authorities said Tuesday.
Police said they found the 26-year-old woman bruised and burned Monday evening in a...

A Laguna Hills man pleaded not guilty Monday to allegations that he plotted to have an underage teenage relative — who he allegedly raped — kidnapped and taken to Mexico, according to the Orange County Superior Court website.
Jesus Acosta,...

Months before a Newport Beach man was kidnapped and severely beaten last year, he had traveled to Las Vegas with a business acquaintance he knew from his Orange County medical marijuana dispensary, according to court testimony given Wednesday by police...

Costa Mesa police have arrested a man accused of kidnapping and assaulting his estranged wife, whom he suspected was in a relationship with another man.
Martin Neas, 36, allegedly stalked his wife — who had a restraining order against him —...

Authorities this week took three people into custody in connection with the kidnapping, torture and genital mutilation of a Newport Beach man last year, prosecutors announced.
Newport Beach police detectives arrested Ryan Anthony Kevorkian, 34, and Naomi Josette Kevorkian, 33, in Fresno Friday. FBI agents arrested Hossein Nayeri, 34, Thursday in Prague, Czech Republic, where he is facing extradition, according to a news release from the Orange County district attorney's office.
Police first arrested...

Newport Beach police Friday arrested a man suspected of kidnapping a woman from the Balboa Peninsula and holding her at gunpoint.
Bradley John King, 42, of Rhode Island, was arguing with a woman while they were out for dinner and drinks Thursday evening, Newport police said.
When the argument escalated, King allegedly forced her into his car near 28th Street and Balboa Boulevard at about 7:15 p.m., police added.
When she tried to escape, King pointed a gun at the victim's head and forced her to stay in...

Orange County prosecutors Monday filed additional charges against a professional clown arrested Friday in Newport Beach on suspicion of kidnapping and raping a girl nine years ago.
Jose Guadalupe Jimenez, 41, of Anaheim was charged with two felony counts of lewd acts upon a child under 14, one felony count of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one felony count of committing a forcible lewd act on a child under 14, according to the district attorney's office.
The suspect ran a successful clown...

Opening statements began Wednesday in the trial against a Newport Beach woman charged with asking a private investigator to kidnap her son.
Niveen Ismail, 45, wanted her 7-year-old out of foster care so the two could flee to Europe or the Middle East, according to a statement from the Orange County district attorney's office.
According to prosecutors, in 2009 she offered an investigator a large sum of money for him to kidnap the boy from his Lake Forest foster family and take him to Tijuana. She had...

A Newport Beach woman accused of trying to kidnap her son was acquitted by a jury Thursday.
After a week-long trial, Niveen Ismail, 45, was acquitted after being accused of trying to hire someone to kidnap her 7-year-old boy, who would then take the boy to Mexico where he and Ismail would rendezvous and fly to Egypt, Ismail's native country.
Her son was adopted by a Lake Forest family after taken from Ismail's custody in 2005.
—Joseph Serna
Twitter: @JosephSerna

A suspected white supremacist gang member from Costa Mesa is to appear in court Friday on charges of aggravated assault and kidnapping.
Jessie Raffensberger, 32, is accused of assaulting a man who was lured to a hotel, holding him against his will and hitting him with a semi-automatic pistol for the benefit of white supremacist and criminal street gangs, according to a 2010 news release from the Orange County district attorney's office.
Raffensberger's arrest in 2010 was part of the largest take-down of...

A Costa Mesa man was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison Monday for his role in a kidnapping and ransom plot that spanned the Southland.
Vagan Adzhemyan, 44, was convicted in 2010 of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and kidnapping. His two partners, Galvin Shaun Gibson, 33, of Mira Loma and Suren Garibyan, 34, of North Hollywood received sentences of 27 years and about 17 years, respectively.
The office of the U.S. attorney's violent and organized crime unit prosecuted the case.
According to the...